What to Do Immediately After a Hail Storm | Wannamaker

The sirens stop, the hail tapers off, and you step outside to a yard covered in ice. Your car might have fresh dents. Your gutters might be dented or hanging loose. But the real question—the expensive one—is what happened to your roof. The next 48 hours will determine whether your insurance claim goes smoothly or becomes a drawn-out fight. Here's what to do, step by step, based on over a decade of helping San Antonio homeowners navigate exactly this situation.

Step 1: Stay Off the Roof

This sounds obvious, but after every major hailstorm we get calls from homeowners who climbed up to "take a look" and either couldn't identify the damage or, worse, made things worse by walking on compromised shingles. Wet roofs after storms are slippery. Hail-damaged shingles are brittle. And unless you know exactly what hail damage looks like on your specific roof material, you're not going to learn much up there anyway.

Leave the roof inspection to a professional. Your job right now is documentation from the ground.

Step 2: Document Everything From Ground Level

Grab your phone and start taking photos and video immediately—before you clean anything up. Insurance adjusters want to see what the storm actually did, and the closer your documentation is to the time of impact, the stronger your claim.

Here's what to capture:

• Hailstones on the ground. Place a coin, ruler, or credit card next to them for scale. Quarter-sized hail and above almost always causes roof damage on asphalt shingle roofs.
• Gutters and downspouts. Look for dents, dings, and accumulations of shingle granules—those small, sand-like particles that wash out of damaged shingles.
• Window screens and AC units. These are soft-metal "witnesses" that prove hail size and direction. Adjusters look at these closely.
• Siding, fencing, and outdoor furniture. Any impact marks support your claim and help establish the storm's severity.
• Your vehicles. Dents on car hoods and roofs help prove hail size when the ice has already melted.

Time-stamp matters. Most smartphones embed date and GPS data in photos automatically—this is exactly the kind of evidence that makes an adjuster's job easy and your claim harder to dispute.

Step 3: Mitigate Any Active Leaks

Your homeowner's policy requires you to take "reasonable steps" to prevent further damage. If water is coming in, put buckets under drips, move valuables away from the affected area, and cover any obvious openings with a tarp if you can do so safely from the ground or a low-slope section. Document the leak with photos before and after you mitigate.

If you need emergency tarping, most reputable roofing companies—including ours—can get a crew out quickly after a storm. Don't let a small leak become a ceiling collapse because you waited a week.

Step 4: File Your Insurance Claim Promptly

Call your insurance carrier within 24-48 hours. In Texas, most homeowner's policies have a one-year window to file a hail claim, but waiting works against you. The longer you wait, the more an adjuster can argue the damage is from "wear and tear" rather than the specific storm event. Carriers like USAA, State Farm, Allstate, and Liberty Mutual all have storm-surge teams that deploy to San Antonio after major hail events—getting your claim filed early puts you higher in the queue.

When you call, have your policy number ready and mention the specific date of the storm. Ask for a claim number and the name of your assigned adjuster. Write these down—you'll need them.

If you're unfamiliar with the insurance claim process, don't stress. A good roofing contractor will walk you through every step and meet with the adjuster on your behalf.

Step 5: Get a Professional Roof Inspection—Before the Adjuster Shows Up

This is the step most homeowners skip, and it's the one that costs them the most money. Insurance adjusters are not working for you—they're working for the carrier. They're trained, they're fast, and they have financial incentive to minimize the scope of damage. That doesn't make them dishonest, but it does mean you need someone in your corner who knows what to look for.

Schedule a free roof inspection with a licensed local contractor before the adjuster's visit. A thorough inspection will identify:

• Shingle bruising and fractures. Hail impacts compress the mat underneath the granules. This damage is often invisible from the ground but shortens roof life dramatically.
• Granule displacement patterns. Random, scattered granule loss (as opposed to uniform wear) is a hallmark of hail damage.
• Cracked or chipped tiles. If you have a tile roofing system, hail can crack tiles without displacing them—hidden damage that leads to leaks months later.
• Dented flashing, vents, and ridge caps. Soft metals around penetrations are the first things to show impact damage and are easy for adjusters to overlook.

When your contractor meets the adjuster on the roof, they can point out damage the adjuster might miss and ensure the scope of the claim reflects reality. This alone can mean the difference between a partial roof repair payout and a full roof replacement approval.

Step 6: Be Cautious With Storm Chasers

After every major hailstorm in the San Antonio metro—from Stone Oak to Schertz to New Braunfels—out-of-state trucks flood the neighborhoods. These storm-chaser crews knock on doors, offer "free" inspections, and pressure you to sign a contract on the spot. Some are legitimate. Many are not.

Red flags to watch for:

• No local address or Texas license. Ask for their physical office location in San Antonio. If they can't provide one, move on.
• "We'll cover your deductible." This is insurance fraud in Texas. Any contractor who offers this is putting your claim—and potentially your policy—at risk.
• High-pressure signing tactics. A legitimate contractor won't pressure you to sign anything before you've had time to review it.
• No warranty documentation. If they'll be three states away next month, that "lifetime warranty" is worthless.

A Note on Recent Storm Activity

We've been tracking the severe weather patterns pushing through the region, including the high wind warnings in the Guadalupe Mountains area of Eddy County. While that system was centered further west, it's a reminder that spring storm season in South-Central Texas is unpredictable and intense. San Antonio's position between the Hill Country and the coastal plains makes it a magnet for hail-producing supercells from April through June. If you haven't had your roof inspected since the last major storm, now is the time—not after the next one hits.

The Bottom Line

After a hailstorm, the sequence matters: document from the ground, mitigate active leaks, file your claim quickly, and get a professional inspection before the adjuster arrives. Skip any of these steps and you risk leaving money on the table—or worse, discovering hidden damage months later when your claim window has closed. San Antonio gets hit hard by hail nearly every spring. The homeowners who come out ahead aren't lucky—they're prepared and they act fast.